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Toyguru Mattycollector.com MOTUC News Thread February 2012

Like last year, instead of posting EVERY little thing in it's own post, I'll gather them ALL the relevant MOTUC Ask Matty postings here. Keep checking for updates! The old threads are ancient history and won't be updated anymore. This is the new spot until next month.

As always, I'll put the most recent news up first, while the old news is down the bottom.

Hi Tg,
when I heard You talking about what would it be 3ฐ and 4ฐ cartoon series I start dreaming.

You know the Smallville Tv serie run out last year. So no more Clark Kent on the CWchannel but fans still love those characters and so serie is goning to be continued in a comic serie season 11.

I know It's a big project, but what about a 3ฐ and 4ฐ serie with digital comsics to buy on matty with subscription?

It would be fantastic to have also the new charachters in ( Spector, Photog, DraegoMan)

I know you as fan of the line you'r hanging on this idea , isn't it?

C'mon! Go on with the serie, we like to see masters as renegades and what happened next!

It would be great but we just don't have the resources at this time to do something like that.

But yes, the 3 mini comics are envisioned as what the finale of a potential 3rd season of the 200X show might have been like ("classic-ized" a bit). Between the first page of the 1st mini comic and Thunder Punch He-Man's bio you should have a good idea of what Season 3 would have been like.

I absolutely love the subscription maps! They are outstanding! All 3!!
I just have one question. Why does the Preternia map deviate so much from the style of Eternia and Etheria map? The map boarder is different and the title scroll is much bigger and features more detail? And perhaps the most obvious change, the land is drawn as one mass, on its own, instead of within the two circles like Eternia and Etheria..
I know that Preternia pre-dates the Spell of Separation, but Etheria has been drawn within the two circles, so I can't help but think Preternia could have been done within the template of the first 2 maps.
Again, all 3 are beautiful and, honestly, the highlight of my sub, but Preternia looks out of place next to Eternia and Etheria..

I'd really like to hear your views on this.

With Central Tower being in the center, the double circle layout was not working so we went for a more traditional flat map.

I started a topic based on a statement made by Mattel in this months Q/A about a 200X Roboto and King Hsss variants (or re-release them with corrected shoulders). Right now about 7/10 fans say yes they would want these made in 200X inspired design done in Classics style.

Oh we can still look at 200X inspired variants for figure that had a signifigantly different outifts (i.d. Randor, Hsss, Sorceress, etc...) what is less likely is us re-doing a vintage version of a figure to correct an earlier error. Nothing off the table, but it is hard to justify a slot for something like this vs. an all new figure or variant with the limited resources we have.

First of all, I think Sir Laser-Lot is really cool! I hear that Geoff Johns had suggested a belt to break up all the blue, which I think is a great idea. I think it could help. Is this maybe the piece you were considering? I think it'd push the figure that extra little bit. The details seem to gel with the rest of the outfit and look very "knight-like" to me.

We tried to add this but it is officially too late. I can confirm the belt will not be added.

Are these officially done? Or will they be revived perhaps for con exclusives or something else? I would love to see a Moss Man vs SwampThing or an Evil seed vs Poison Ivy...something green. Plus the SDCC Swampthing is huge, and out of scale with my collection...let us know if we will ever see these mash ups agains, there are so many possibilities and an easy way for redecos and variants.

I was curious as to whether it would be possible to eliminate the alternate head, instead of his staff? From the overwhelming response on various forums, it seems that this is a better idea from a customer's perspective. Is it logistically possible?

No. The choice was already made and it is too late to change anything as he has been tool'd already.

Seems some people want you to trade out the 2nd head for the staff. Is this being considered? I for one would be pretty ticked off if you did not include the 2nd head, seeing as part of MOTU lore is that Horde Prime has 2 heads. Duh!

Yes. He was running over cost so we had to remove one accessory. Between the second head, the mask, the armo cannon and the staff, the design group voted to remove the staff. But we are looking for ways to release this with a future figure in time.

Since both Sorceress and Fisto sold out within a hour of sale time, does this mean that you will increase production numbers to better meet the new 2012 fan demand?

No. The next figure which we can change the quota on is the Oct 2013 figure. 2012 is set in stone at this point. There will still be production for non sub holders day of but it will be less compared to previous years. The sub remains your best way to guarantee each figure.

Years ago Mattel used to attend the Wizard World convention in Chicago but stopped. The last couple of years we finally got you back into our town at C2E2. Now I see we are being skipped again. Can you discuss why Chicago keeps getting passed up, unlike New York and San Diego? Feeling a little jilted here in the midwest.

Frosta has turned out fantastically, but quite a few fans have expressed concerns over the way her eyes and lips have been painted.

Will you consider making some tiny tweeks to the way the shape of her eyes and lips are painted, her eyes in perticular look a bit bug eyed. Her eyes (Size, lack of purple eyeshadow & to much black eyeliner) and shape of her lips let this lovely figure down IMO. Everything else is spot on! :0)

This isn't meant as a criticism moreso a suggestion, here is what she could look like if these tweeks were made! :0) (Her eyebrows were also tweeked a little bit as well)

You'll need to talk to the Horsemen on the Horsemen site. They do the deco, not me.

Hi Scott, I ask to you directly because I remember to have read from you sometimes ago on this forum that you found in the old Mattel's archives the full POG script of the 3 original vintage POG Mini comics.
Correct me if I am wrong but I am sure of that lol.

So, if I am correct, the title "He-Ro unleashed" was also the original title envisaged for the old mini part#2 or it is an all new title improvised?

Also, about the cover, the old cover of the part#2 was done by the past or really not?
If Yes, the new one is very similar to this one or very different?
I ask because the first cover of the New POG comic part#1 is very similar to the old one.

We used the original rough notes (and vintage first issue) as a jumping off point (the outline was a very vague detail-less story outline) and went in a direction that incorporated the Classics storyline as told in the bios. These are not meant (and never were meant) to be what the vintage part 2 and 3 might have been to an exact degree.

...how much would it be? Some fans are used to buying expensive 3rd party add-ons for lines such as Transformers, so long as they are worthwhile heads, such as the 200X heads for Sy-Klone, Buzz-Off, Grizzlor, Snout Spout and Clawful.

So what would you be asking for if Mattel decided to relax their position on 200X heads and Head Packs?
It is not a question of cost. It is a question of tooling. I brought this up to management and they rejected it outright. We simply can't execute on every fan demanded idea. It is a cool idea but there is too much tooling involved. For the tooling we would need for a heads pack we would prefer to do a 100% tool figure like Ram Man or Shadow Weaver.

I know there's involved a high cost of tooling, but if this pack gonna be a big success wouldn't it pay off those costs soon or later?

Unless you plan to releasel in the near future 200x motuc version, then I can understand that 200x head pack could compromise the future selling.

The 200X interpretation of figures is retired at this time (and yes we know there is fan demand). All figures in the MOTUC line are in the "Classics" style. (both 200X and Classics are different artistic interpretations of the vintage line). In addition, as you pointed out, a heads pack would eat up too much tooling and right now we are putting all of our tooling into the figures.

I know that you said the wind raider didn't sell out fast enough to warrant anymore for the time being. I was just wondering if the outside factors were included in this decision. Personally I wanted to buy more but being moved from October to December made that difficult. Battle Cat was sold in February, I have more money to spend frivolously now then I did in December.

Are these factors looked into, or just the sell out time?

We announced the price months in advance. So customers had more then enough time to save or put away funds for the Windraider if they wanted it. We simply can't run the line for each customer's individual buying habits or financial situation. That is why we announced the price well n advance.

I'm sure that Mattel has seen this post and the news post posted on He-man.org about this new issue of the foam used for Snout Spout's trunk. Does Mattel plan to make a statement or at least to promise not to use this specific material for future figures?

Yes, I've seen the posts on other sites about this issue. If you have a toy that breaks, you can return or through customer service. The issue does not appear that widespread but I have passed it along to our design team to review.

We never intend to put out anything but great figures and I am sorry for anyone who has less then perfect figures. It is a shame when figures break or are damaged after time. It is never intentional.

So the updates to mattycollector are done and there is still no option to 'top up' the monthly sub with day of sale purchases. A lot of us bought the sub on this promise and it looks like you've just forgotten about it. You could at least tell us that you won't be doing it rather than having your customers wait for something that is not going to happen.

On the news section about the new sub page it states: You can also choose not to have any of your subscriptions ship together, which is something many of our international customers have requested. International fans wanted the ability to break up each monthly sub and last year you made it sound like that's what we were getting and many of us bought the sub based on that. We weren't asking for the ability to break up two subs that ship together when that is something we could already do back then by ordering them individually.

There's no way I'm getting a sub again on the promise of changes to come because you either simply don't follow through or you had no idea what we were asking for in the first place. It has been like this for three years now: Promises about DR and then it just goes on and on and you don't even have the decency to tell us that what we are expecting (based on your comments) will never come.

We said this is an option we are working on and we still are. It just isn't ready yet.

I had ordered the Club Eternia, 30th Anniversary, and DC Infinite Earths subsciption programs, all at different times in 2011. Can anyone confirm that my monthly releases will be shipped together, and will only be billed a single shipping charge? Thanks!

Not quite. The first time any item for a any sub comes out it does not ship together. But any club item that is "renewing" in the second month, will ship together.

So because the MOTU monthly sub will renew for the first time in Feb, that is the first month the sub has the "option to renew". Because MOTU 30th is not renewing in Feb, that is the inital order, it will not be combined. Combined shipping will start in months where multiple subs are being "renewed". You can find all of these details in our news section. It was explained back when we put the subs on sale.

So in April, your Eternia and MOTU 30th will renew and will ship together. But your DC sub will be a first time sub and will ship seperate. In May when your DC sub is renewing and your MOTU sub is renewing they will ship together.

It is a little complicated but this was the best option to combine shipping. As long as it is the same credit card, shipping address and order details subs that renew will ship together regardless of when you placed your order.

I've been reading your blog about starting off the MOTUC series, and you made the comment about management giving you direction on the style of the line and how they wanted the 200X style retired. To satisfy my curiosity, could you explain why management would have drawn a line in the sand on this? Are they huge MOTU fans as well and believe they know what will sell and what won't, or do they hate the 200X line because it didn't do as well as the vintage line or what? I just figure that if they hired you to handle this line, they'd let you make those sorts of decisions, just so long as the money rolled back into their offices.

We wanted to have one unified look going forward and move the brand in a forward direction with the Classics interpretation, not go backwards to the 200X hyper detail interpretation.

IF it was possible to give a Steed for The Mighty Spector, what would it be and why? (Theoretically speaking of course, since it's most likely that it would not get made for various reasons that do not need to be explained)

He doesn't have a steed, he rides around in a time traveling hover craft that is powered by his wrist communicator/cosmic key. He pulls it off his wrist and plugs it into his craft when he needs to transport more then just himself on a mission.

The Reason why I ask is because The "Symbol" of the Spade means/Represents "a tool to dig graves" that "suggests death."
No. His is a Time Agent who prevents other bad guys from messing with time and stuff. More when his bio is revealed.

Didnt he state that in January the Photog would not ship with the others subs? Well, he didnt explain why, as he has done now. And we all know that Photog was pushed back to February, so we were told, just not all the details and we cant really fault him for that, he was expecting things to go as planned and gave us a simple explanation, didnt he? I think we need to cut him some slack on the shipping thing.

He did state separate shipments was a possibility, and that they were trying to get both to ship together, but never explained why they would have to ship separately that first month, until now. IIRC, we didn't have confirmation either way until now.

He did state separate shipments was a possibility, and that they were trying to get both to ship together, but never explained why they would have to ship separately that first month, until now. IIRC, we didn't have confirmation either way until now.

This.

My problem is that they either didn't care enough to do the work to combine orders, or they wouldn't pay Digital River to do that work.

The thing that has me so upset is that the idea that this was somehow beyond their capabilities is laughable.

Now I will be paying about $15 extra just to get some camera-head guy LOL (it's about $15 for ups plus tax on the shipping).

I find this utterly ludicrous. It's yet ANOTHER mistake on a seemingly infinite list.

Just sad.

And in the end, it has translated to less sales for Mattel. Not that it matters, because they'll sell out anyway.

So I ordered MOTUC, 30th anniversary and Infinite Crisis subs all together on the same order. Will mine ship together at least? I'll be royally ticked if not because I spent several hours trying to work on this with DR back when the 30th subs went on sale. Can someone in the tech business explain why renewing vs 1st month would have any impact on DR combining orders?

My problem is that they either didn't care enough to do the work to combine orders, or they wouldn't pay Digital River to do that work.

The thing that has me so upset is that the idea that this was somehow beyond their capabilities is laughable.

Now I will be paying about $15 extra just to get some camera-head guy LOL (it's about $15 for ups plus tax on the shipping).

I find this utterly ludicrous. It's yet ANOTHER mistake on a seemingly infinite list.

Just sad.

And in the end, it has translated to less sales for Mattel. Not that it matters, because they'll sell out anyway.

I understand where you're coming from. I know several people asked for updates on the situation, but nothing had been finalized... and I too was thinking of ordering extra figures not just for myself, but for others, though now... I'll have to consider very carefully...

"Remember, all subscriptions ordered by one person (same email address, credit card, address and shipping method) will ship together, with one exception: The first month that any of your subscription orders ship, subscriptions not purchased together will not ship together (estimated January for Club Eterniaฎ and MOTU 30th Anniversary Series, February for Club Lion Force and April for DC Universe Club Infinite Earths). The second time your subscription ships (essentially the monthly renewal), all of your subscriptions will ship together to the same address (estimated February for Club Eternia, March for MOTU 30th Anniversary Series, April for Club Lion Force and May for DC Universe Club Infinite Earths). So, for example, let's say you purchased two Club Eternia subscriptions in one transaction during the July on-sale period and two subscriptions during the September on-sale period in another transaction. When the first club figures are released in January, the figures purchased in July will ship in one package and the figures purchased in September will ship in another package. Then in February, all the figures from all four subscriptions will ship together. This only applies to subscriptions that were not purchased in the same transaction. All subscriptions that are purchased in the same transaction will ship together the first month as promised."

Whether we knew about this or not doesn't change the fact that it's ridiculous that it has to occur in the first place.

I can't think of one valid reason why they can't ship together.

Except that Mattel gets to squeeze that extra shipping money out of us one last time.

Yep...I agree. I ship stuff all the time and I can tell you that there ARE various shipping programs that allow orders to be combined at ANY time for ONE shipment, so some thing's not right. Surprise, surprise.

I've given up on trying to figure out how they operate over there. These types of resources and technology are out there. They just refuse to use them while YOU end up paying the price.

Yeah, this is just not at all how it was explained any time before today. They made it seem like they might not be able to pull it off by January, thus the best part about having Photog delayed until this month was that I thought "Oh great! If they were ALMOST able to get it done by last month then the delay will surely mean they'll be able to get it done now and save us some shipping money! Hooray!"

Didnt he state that in January the Photog would not ship with the others subs? Well, he didnt explain why, as he has done now. And we all know that Photog was pushed back to February, so we were told, just not all the details and we cant really fault him for that, he was expecting things to go as planned and gave us a simple explanation, didnt he? I think we need to cut him some slack on the shipping thing.

"This only applies to subscriptions that were not purchased in the same transaction. All subscriptions that are purchased in the same transaction will ship together the first month as promised."

That's not what we're being told now. I don't cut slack if someone goes back on their word...

"I will use this power for all the good that can be done, to work for peace, to encourage virtue, and above all, to preserve life in all its forms..." Superman

"This only applies to subscriptions that were not purchased in the same transaction. All subscriptions that are purchased in the same transaction will ship together the first month as promised."

That's not what we're being told now. I don't cut slack if someone goes back on their word...

Really? I don't see anywhere that says they aren't combining if you purchased them together... did I miss that?
The question he's replying to specifically said that he bought the three subs all at different times.